Lack of legal digital availability causes jump in movie piracy

The issue of piracy -- its causes, its persisting reality, its effects -- have been debated to the moon and back. Numbers tell a story rooted in fact, however, and according to some statistics assembled and compared by a couple sources, lack of legally available digital movie options consistently results in an increase in piracy, something perhaps not surprising to those who have found themselves frustrated at the inability to find a movie through preferred online stores.

The industrious folks at TorrentFreak keep tabs on the pirating world, making a weekly list of the top-ten pirated movies. Using this information, the website PiracyData.org compares it to information made available from CanIStreamIt, another movie-centric website that focuses on making it easier to find a legal copy of a movie or TV show.

PiracyData poses a relevant question: "Do people turn to piracy when the movies they want to watch are not available legally?" And by looking at the charts it has assembled based on legal availability and top pirated movies, it would seem the answer is, not surprisingly, yes. Out of the top ten most pirated movies, four of them are not available in any legal online way, whether streaming, digital rental, or digital purchase.

Another three on the list are only available for digital purchase, something many consumers avoid because of the high price that comes with something perceived as limited or of lesser relative value than a physical disc with resale value. Only three movies on the list have two out of three legal means of watching -- digital rental and digital purchase. None of the top ten movies are legally available for streaming, however, such as through Netflix or Prime.